Ethics Part 2,
Of the Nature and Origin of the Mind
Preface, Definitions, and Axioms

E2:
PREFACE.
I now pass on to explaining the results, which must necessarily follow
from the essence of God, or of the
eternal and
infinite being; not,
indeed, all of them (for we proved in E1P16,
that an infinite number
must follow in an infinite number of ways), but only those which are able
to lead us, as it were by the hand, to the knowledge of the
human mind and
its highest blessedness.

E2:
DEF. 2. I consider as belonging to the
essence
of a thing that, which being
given, the thing is necessarily given also, and, which being removed, the
thing is necessarily removed also; in other words, that without which the
thing, and which itself without the thing, can neither be nor be
conceived.

E2:
DEF. 3. By idea,
I mean the mental conception which is formed by the
mind as a thinking thing.

Explanation.--I say conception
rather than perception, because the word
perception seems to imply that the
mind is
passive in respect to the
object; whereas conception seems to express an
activity of the mind.

Explanation.--I say
indefinite, because it cannot be determined through
the existence itself of the existing thing, or by its efficient cause,
which necessarily gives the existence of the thing, but does not take it
away.

E2:
DEF. 7. By
particular things,
I mean things which are finite and have a
conditioned existence; but if several
individual things
concur in one
action, so as to be all simultaneously the effect of one cause, I consider
them all, so far, as one
particular thing.